FILM; Old Strengths but New Emphasis at Hamptons Festival

By KARIN LIPSON

Published: September 2, 2007

WHETHER or not ''Elvis and Anabelle'' wins an official prize at the Hamptons International Film Festival, audiences just might give its young, broodingly handsome co-star Max Minghella the ''sexiest mortician'' award.

O.K., so there's no such award at the festival, which runs Oct. 17 to 21 at various East End locations. But Mr. Minghella, son of the director Anthony Minghella, does play a mortician with deep secrets in this quirky romance, which co-stars Blake Lively as an unhappy beauty-pageant queen whose apparent death is actually the start of something good.

Making its East Coast debut, ''Elvis and Anabelle,'' written and directed by Will Geiger, also suggests a new emphasis at the festival, which is celebrating its 15th anniversary and has new programming leadership.

''We're trying to bring the American indies up to the level and quality of the foreign films,'' said the festival programmer Josh Koury, who has been choosing films this year with David Nugent as consultant. (Mr. Nugent is also director of programming at the Newport International Film Festival).

The two took up the reins earlier this season, after Rajendra Roy, the Hamptons festival's artistic director, announced he was leaving to become chief curator of the film department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

In five years with the festival, Mr. Roy emphasized some politically engaged content and a wide range of foreign films -- ''other than French and Italian all the time,'' as he recently said at MoMA, where he has worked since July while continuing as the festival's artistic adviser. ''What I was bringing to the table was not every point of view -- it was mine.''

Mr. Roy left the festival a ''more significant'' event, said Stuart Match Suna, the festival's board chairman and the president of Silvercup Studios in Long Island City. ''We've got more industry people attending,'' he said.

According to a marketing study by the festival, nearly a third of the more than 20,000 visitors who saw its 120 features and shorts last year were in the film industry.

The number of films this year is likely to be roughly the same, but Mr. Koury and Mr. Nugent were still deep into film selection last month. Still, the programmers were able to point to the coming world premiere of ''Turn the River'' -- a dark story of a pool hustler (Famke Janssen) who gambles everything for love of her son, written and directed by Chris Eigeman -- as another example of what Mr. Koury called the ''terrific American indies'' that will contend for a Golden Starfish Award (that festival prize is for real).

As might be expected, the subject of Iraq will come up: The documentary ''Body of War,'' co-directed and co-produced by Phil Donahue, the former talk-show host, is about a paralyzed veteran who goes from soldier to antiwar activist. The comedy-drama ''Kabluey'' follows a soldier's wife (Lisa Kudrow) and her sad-sack brother-in-law (Scott Prendergast, who also wrote and directed) as they cope with stateside fallout from the war.

Ms. Kudrow is expected to attend the festival, where ''Kabluey'' will be part of the celebrity-oriented ''Spotlight'' program that draws crowds and photo ops. Others expected to add festival buzz include Harvey Keitel (a star of ''My Sexiest Year,'' a coming-of-age tale written and directed by Howard Himelstein) and the restaurateur Sirio Maccioni of Le Cirque in Manhattan, the subject of ''A Table in Heaven,'' a documentary directed by Andrew Rossi.

Mr. Nugent brings to the festival an especially strong background in documentaries. One festival entry he is ''so excited about,'' he said, is ''Grey Gardens: From East Hampton to Broadway,'' directed by Albert Maysles. It both revisits the 1975 cult documentary Mr. Maysles made with his late brother, David, about Edith and ''Little Edie'' Beale -- mother-daughter recluses who lived in squalor in East Hampton -- and relates how it became a hit musical.

One aspect of the festival in the category of ''if it ain't broke'' is its strength in foreign films, especially from Germany, where Mr. Roy has longstanding connections. German entries include ''Four Minutes,'' about an elderly piano instructor and the young convict she teaches at a women's prison, and ''Yella,'' an intricate story of a woman whose life takes a different direction after a car crash.

Another strength is ''Films of Conflict and Resolution,'' a program that grapples with global issues. This year it will include documentaries touching on the Middle East (''To Die in Jerusalem''); Korean sex slaves of World War II (''Behind Forgotten Eyes''), and, again, the changing views of some American soldiers (''Soldiers of Conscience'').

So, audiences can expect both change and continuity; how much of each is still to be determined. The new team will be ''trying to give our point of view,'' Mr. Koury said. But, he added, referring to the foundation Mr. Roy built, ''You don't tinker with that.''

PHOTOS: SCREENING IN THE HAMPTONS: David Nugent, far left, and Josh Koury are choosing the films for this year's Hamptons International Film Festival. The films include, clockwise from above, ''Kabluey''; ''Elvis and Anabelle,'' starring Max Minghella and Blake Lively; ''My Sexiest Year,'' with Harvey Keitel, at left, and Frankie Muniz, and the documentaries ''Soldiers of Conscience'' and ''To Die in Jerusalem.'' (PHOTOGRAPHS BY MARITZA CASTEEL; CHESTER HIGGINS JR./THE NEW YORK TIMES)